


Your Favor

by MalChilling



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe, Andrew is a cursed boy, M/M, Rapunzel AU, Sort Of, less trauma than usual, nicky and erik are the twinyard's parents y'all, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:28:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27317758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalChilling/pseuds/MalChilling
Summary: Andrew is a boy cursed to remain in a tower until his eighteenth birthday.Neil is a boy trying to gain the favor of the blond in the tower.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	Your Favor

**Author's Note:**

> this got out of hand.

The first time someone steals a kiss from Andrew, he’s sixteen. The man, too big and rough, is named Drake. He says he’s there to rescue him, but needs something in return for all his trouble. Andrew breaks a lamp over his head before he even has the chance, and slits his throat with the shattered porcelain. 

It feels like vindication to throw his body over the railing, like a warning for future visitors. 

Several other men come. They charge in, like supposed heroes in shining armor and all demand kisses to let him out. He tells them to leave or die. Most die. Their bodies turning to bone at the bottom of the tower.

What the witch who had cursed him and locked him in the tower didn’t understand, was that Andrew preferred being alone. Growing up an abandoned orphan, he was alone on those streets with no one to take care of but himself. It wasn’t until Nicky had confused him with his twin in that market that he even knew he had a family. Tilda, his dear mother, had abandoned him but taken his brother, which set the mood for the rest of his life. Abandoned. 

Luther and Maria wanted to take him in, but thankfully Nicky and his friend, Erik had gotten there first, scooping Aaron and Andrew up before the religious cuckoos could. So there he was, thirteen years old and settling in to the awkward new family like a square peg in a wheel. He fought with Aaron, who had taken to be a physician’s assistant, and sometimes forgot he was supposed to come home. Nicky and Erik learned not to worry eventually, knowing that growing up without a roof over his head for more than a decade couldn’t compete with six months of living in their quaint cottage in the woods. 

Andrew eventually stopped running off, and got used to the bed in the room he shared with Aaron, though Aaron had more stuff than him. Erik was always bringing them things whenever he could spare the money, books and candy, meat and flowers. Nicky always admonished him half heartedly before smiling and putting it into their one vase, a cracked porcelain thing with faded paint. A stolen memento from his mother’s house. 

Andrew even got used to the warm wool blankets he shared with Aaron, the old brown one and the even more worn blue one. The brown one was new because Andrew used to share the blue one with Aaron, but Aaron moved too much and a decade of living in the streets made sure Andrew woke up kicking and punching. Nicky had come home, having sold his hair -once waist length- and a brown blanket wrapped up in his arms. 

Aaron had gone quiet, because he had been the one complaining about the kicking, and Erik had caressed Nicky’s hair. Nicky had pretended he wasn’t sad, and smiled at Andrew, who assumed that he had a dumb look on his face because Nicky had waved it off like it was nothing. 

“It’ll grow back.” Nicky laughs “It’s nothing.” 

_“I just don’t want you to have to wake up like that anymore.”_

Andrew hates Nicky. And he hates Erik, and Aaron. And he hates the brown blanket, and it’s warmth. He hates the stupid book on the shelf Erik made him. And the stupid sweets Nicky gets him from his job at the bakery. 

It takes a year, but he doesn’t wake up like that anymore anytime something startles him. He just… wakes up. Tense, definitely tense, but not violently. 

And Nicky is so happy he cries. They all ignore Erik, who had slipped on Aaron's book, and fallen when they’d tried to sneak into the room to sing Happy Birthday to the twins. 

Erik gets up and hustles them into the kitchen for warm pastries and milk, a treat for turning fourteen. Andrew thinks he might start to like his birthday. 

When he turns fifteen, a witch curses him. She’s confused him with Aaron, who’s dating her granddaughter. He always knew the seamstress would be trouble. 

She curses him to the tower, -so Katelyn’s purity isn’t damaged. If he only knew she knew it was already too late for that, and Nicky was this close to moving her in until the couple found a place, and could wed.

She leaves him there. Nicky, Erik, and Aaron are enchanted so they don’t remember him. As is the rest of the village. 

She spreads the word that anyone who can gain his favor, gains a new chance at life. People think it means that if they took his kiss, they can gain immortality. It doesn’t. It's just a rumor spread by the old witch so he’s constantly harassed, the only thing the curse does is keep him in the tower until he’s eighteen. He doesn’t know why eighteen, he figures she thinks there's only so much time she can control his granddaughter. 

He makes plans for what he’ll do once he turns eighteen while he brushes his growing hair, the blonde strands seem to pale more and more with age, starting with burning the witch and putting her charred corpse in the tower. He’ll go back to Nicky and Erik, and figure out a way to make them remember him again. He’ll punch Aaron. 

But right now, his birthday is four months away. He has been here for three years doing nothing but reading the books that were left here by whoever had been here last and reading them again until he would’ve had every word memorized had his memory not been exceptional already. 

Nicky had loved that every time he and Andrew went to the market, they would never forget anything. Aaron was jealous. Erik was proud. 

“Hey!” Someone shouts, startling him out of his thoughts. He leans out, and sees a boy with auburn hair looking up at the window with curious eyes. Andrew wants to sneer with disdain, knowing that this someone is here to take without asking. But all he feels is curious. 

“What do you want?” He yells back down, and the red figure shifts on his feet. He’s wearing brown breaches, a white worn shirt with a brown jacket that doesn’t look warm but ancient, and the rattiest pair of boots he’s ever seen. 

“I don’t see a dragon!” The ratty boy yells back up, a question in his tone. “Am I at the wrong place?” 

“I’m not a princess.” Andrew clarifies. 

“I didn’t think you were!” The boy clarifies, before shifting again. “I was wondering if I could ask for your favor? Assuming I’m at the right place.” 

Andrew doesn’t blink in surprise but it’s a near thing. He thinks this is the first time someone’s asked. 

“Why?” he asks, and the red figure shifts again. 

“I hear you give new chances at life.” 

Andrew figured that was why. He snorts, before going back to his book and waving away the ratty boy standing next to the pile of bones. 

“You heard wrong.” Andrew says. 

“So these skeletons are just for decoration, then?” 

“Yes, actually.” Andrew responds, face still in his book. “I call it Hollow day.” 

“Why Hollow Day?”

“Because when you're a skeleton,” Andrew motions down to the bodies, “You’re all hollow inside. No meat.” 

“Heh.” Ratty boy says “That’s pretty creative.” 

“Thank you.” 

He ignores the boy and rereads the warrior princess’s speech to her betrothed. He must have stayed there for at least two hours, he looked down expecting to see the boy gone but found him still standing there, feet propped up on someone’s head and reading his own book. 

“You’re still here?” Andrew asked down, throwing down a small rock from his collection and watching as it hit him in the head. The boy picks it up and throws it back up at him. 

“You never answered the question.” The boy says. 

“What’s your name?” Andrew yells down, his voice is starting to hurt from all the yelling. 

“Neil.” The boy yells back, his voice breaks from the effort “Neil Josten.” 

“Well, Neil Josten. We should talk.” Andrew closes his book. “Get up here.” 

**Author's Note:**

> let me know of any mistakes or missed tags please!


End file.
